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[Guide] SYNERGY! Use it, Love it.

Welcome all to my 2nd guide EVER called SYNERGY!!! And I'm REALLY EXCITED that no one has written about SYNERGY cuz i REALLY LIKE this subject. Thinkings about it makes me giggle. Why do you say??? CUZ ITS SO MUCH FREAKING FUN!!! ITS MEAN AND EVIL AND MAKES LITTLE BOYS CRY WITH THE LOOK OF WOE AND ANGUISH PAINTED ON THERE BABY FAT FACES. But cry not little boy, for I will show you the way of SYNERGY!!!

But Raze, what is synergy?

Synergy(in LOL) is the concept of using two or more champions/items/runes to give you an advantage you can use in a match.

Ever had a peanutbutter sandwich? How about a jelly sandwich? Did you know when you mix the two, its called PB&J? Do you know how much PB&J Absolutely ROCKS?? THAT'S SYNERGY BABY, and its freaking beautiful.

BASIC SYNERGY WITH CHAMPIONS

Now before i start with how it it works, let me just say how it doesn't work. Adding more peanut butter to a peanut butter sandwich does not make it a pb&pb. That's lame. You don't get synergy by using two healing champions, you just get alot of heals. Synergy its taking two DIFFERENT ABILITIES and making them WAY BETTER by ADDING THEM TOGETHER. If you can get two champions that have a lot of abilities that synergies together, then you have a match made in heaven.

If you take this combo into the top or bottom lane from the start, then you can get the easiest kill in the world at level 2.

Sit in the bush, wait for them to push, don't touch the creeps so at the least they are in the middle of the lane grabbing XP. Alistar has to get his Pulverize and Headbutt. Poppy has to grab her Heroic Charge and Devastating Blow (some of you guys are already grinning). When you can, have Alistar go out and Head butt one person to the wall, Then poppy slams the same person to that same wall with her charge.Alistar should then stun them after they move. Poppy auto attacks during both stuns till they move one last time,and then she bashes them with her mega hammer smash, you should notice that there is no more moving.

You want to drag the stuns out as long as possible so Alistar's passive (Trample: does 10 damage per second at lvl 1) can take them down as much as possible and so poppy can get some free hits in. If they do not die from this combo, step away, they are Chuck Norris, and you might have pissed him off.

What makes this an example of synergy is Placement. Poppy's charge is very placement oriented and has a bit of a short range. Alistar's head butt, on the other hand, has mega range, allowing him to setup poppy up for the stun, which sets Alistar up for his stun, which sets poppy up for her bash. Its a very Long chain that is very Hard to avoid. If Alistar is in the bush and they pass in front of him or near him, the combo will go off. Meaning they have to keep back to live, which means they lose XP, meaning you have one of the greatest zone control in the early game.

And then, later on, when both of you have you're level 6, you can dive, AND LIVE, AND GET A KILL. THERE'S NO WHERE THEY CAN HIDE!!!! Either have poppy or Alistar go around back, pop their ult, and stun them (it is better to use Alistar for this since poppy has to slam them into tower or wall to have them stunned which can get tricky). After that burn thru your CDs and someone should die. If they are being supported and its taking to long,Then Get Out BEFORE your ult dies. If you have a jungle have them join the person starting the fight from behind.

Note: Raze and Raise with not take blame for any rage quits or b-fits cause by you tower diving. You should never tower dive, ever.

Example #2 Singed and Cassiopeia (MOAR DOTS PLZ)

This one is simple and sweet, Singed and Cassiopeia. The way this works is straight up Zone Control, and when they break you're zone they pay DEARLY (Like, they die, and stuff...).

First off, Cass has long range spells that can soft-block(makes people not want to walk that way) off an area with a 7 second poison aoe or place a splash aoe down that can control their movements (if they are smart enough to avoid the damage), when they mess up Cass deals poison damage over time(DOTS). I would call this soft lane control because if they are good at dancing and predicting, they can dodge your abilities and still farm pretty well.

But Signed, He's Crazy Man. You don't walk into this dogs turf, the second you do he will be on you like white on rice in a glass of milk on a Dixie plate. He tosses you back into a nice patch of poison that you now have walkr thru. AND THAT'S WHEN IT GETS FUN!!!

Cass has a little spells called Twin Fang. The fang does little damage on its own, but when it hits a target that is POISONED, the cool down resets, allowing her to cast it again, turning it into "THE FANG". Normally when Cass is the only one with poison, you have to cast a spell, wait for it to hit an enemy, and Then you'll get 2 or 3 shots off before the poison drops. BUT WITH SINGED YOU DON'T NEED TO CAST ANYTHING BUT THE FANG. Once's they step into the dog house, there's no coming out alive.

Right off the bat, when Singed get's his toss off, Lay down your two AOE spells ( Miasma will slow them down and Noxious Blast will speed you up if you hit the champions, so don't miss) so they are taking 3 DOTS at one time, That's a lot of DOTS. And then THE FANG can be put on straight Auto Cast making it the best DOT that LoL can offer without people blitzkrieg their Forums and Emails.Once this combo starts SPAM IT LIKE YOU MEAN IT. As they try to out run singed and jump out of his poison, they are losing hp at an INCREDIBLE RATE ( 1.21 gigawatts? GREAT SCOTT). Its moar dots then you could ask for.

Intermediate Synergy for Champions

Ok, so you have a few games under your belt, maybe you consider yourself to be pretty BA. Little gimmicks and tricks don't win games anymore. You need soild team fighting synergy to take you and your team to the finish line. I suggest you start looking outside the box.

By now you should understand that Every champion can be played well and played effectively. Every champion has their quirk. That there is no win all team build. So don't black list any champion when searching for good synergy. Also, when it comes to solo ranked, you have to pick off of your team mates choices as much as off your list of favorite champions, don't just grab a champion cuz you want kills, you are better then that.

Now, Let me open your eyes. Let me show you what's underneith it all. Let me show you what Synergy can really do.

There are no more straight forward examples here, I'm gonna keep it broad so you understand that this pertains to a broad selection of champions. I will give suggestions and tips on how to play with synergy, how to complement teams, how to give you the edge.

Example #1 Range (Cross that line, I DARE YOU!)

RANGE IS AWESOME, RANGE IS GREAT, RANGE IS YOUR FRIEND!!! And with synergy it can become a weapon of endless torment.

What you are looking for here is a team with a few good range champions with DECENT if not AWESOME quick skill shots that have range enough to keep them out of trouble. Ashe Cait Ezreal, they are just afew of them. And then add in 1 champion that will make people PAY for coming too close. Alistar Karthus Veiger, again, just a few example,many champions can fill this role. For the sake of elaborating on how this synergy should work, I'm going to pick three out of the lists above and tell you how they can work together.

Cait Ashe and Karthus

All three of these ranged champs can deal damage without being dealt damage. You pick a lane and either push or defend. Someone shows up you can pop them in the face and then move back. Free damage.

Let me paint you a picture. You got both teams on both sides of the lane, maybe a few guys off in the distance waiting for their time to strike. You keep sending damage their way and little by little their hp goes down. If someone moves forward, Ashe slows them down, making them back off. Cait is laying traps left and right to keep them from wanting to advance. Karthus is on stand-by, waiting for someone to mess up.

Then boom, it happens. Someone jumps out of a bush and and the fights starts, the other team is moving in...

Karthus, at this point, can lay down Wall of Pain. The whole advancing team has just been slowed down to a crawl, on top of that their damage resistance is EXTREMELY COMPROMISED. If the tank on your team does he's job and keeps the initators off the range's backs ( Kinda hard to do with ashe there, people seem to be drawn to her, umm, 'back'), they can Easily target one squishy down before the fight really starts. The rest of the enemy team will have to go thru traps, nets, and Ashe's Multiple list of Arrow Tricks to get to you. They are getting shredded away while moving down the feild at a snail's pace. Once one or two of them turn tail then You Still have Cait's and Karthus ult to pick them off.

Now i understand that what i described is a bit dramatic, and there are a lot of counters to this. Everyone on the other team could get cleanse and it would be like bringing an ignite to a healing party. But the point of this setup is that its not easy to see. Your teammates might not even notice it. Or the enemies' team might say They have a lot of ranges champions, who cares, grab some fatties to get in their face and go go go.

The point of this is to make them pay for starting a fight with you with their blood by stalling them with far reaching stuns, slows and disables, and make them pay for not starting a fight with you by harassing them hard core. Its simple and sweet.

Example #2 AOE Advantages ( Hug me, I'm lonely)

Now, I'm not saying to get a team with nothing but aoe, that's stupid. But there are some Key combos out there that a lot of you know about and a lot of you don't. I'm gonna list a few of them and give a quick explanation on how they work.

Fiddle and Amumu - A lot of you know this one, and a lot of you know this can fail Hard. The enemy team is sure to know its going to happen and will avoid it at all cost. Amumu pops off his ult, Fiddle jumps in with his Ults, Fiddle tosses out some wind that can bounce, Amumu cries and throws a fit. Both of them can reduce Magic resist, Both of them have mega aoe damage. Fiddle is as good as dead once Amumu's ult ends but by the time it does, your team might have enough of an advantage to not care.

Galio and Malz- Galios AOE taunt ( Idol of Duran) will keep them pinned, and Malz can lay down his Null Zone without getting too close to the main group . On top of that, anyone Malz decides to use his ultimate, Nether Grasp, on is as good as dead. A good portion if not the whole team will be completely Screwed. Afterwards Malz can cast Call of the Void to give everyone an extra second or two to deal damage before the other team can really react. If they decide to run, and if Galio is alive, then Galio can slow them down with Resolute Smite and speed up the whole team to chase them down with Righteous Gust.

Jarvan and Soin- I know what you are thinking, They are both enemies, Both SWORN to kill each other, but Both of them have a lot in common.Both of them have disables to use in a fight (Dragon Strike/ Demacian Standard & Cryptic Gaze) Both of them have Aoe Damage ( Cataclysm & Death's Caress ) But here is alittle extra bonus. When Jarv drops Demacian standard, he gives everyone attack speed and armor who is around the flag's aoe. While Soin can pop Enrage and Cannibalism. Soin will get the benefits of the flag, causing him to heal everyone and take a little less damage while he has Cannibalism Popped. Each little piece in this partnership doesn't do a lot on its own, But when its all put together it does ODDLES, tipping the scale into your favor, as long as you can keep the bickering outside of the ring.

ADVANCED SYNERGY FOR CHAMPIONS

Come on now, do I have to give you all my tricks???

NO, I DON'T!!!

Advanced synergy is when you come up with it on your own. Did that guy just pick Panth??? Did he just pick Corki??? I wonder what would happen if i got Taric or JANNA!!!!!!!!!

COME ON PEOPLE! Have some fun with this, and trust me when you find one that works your gonna tell all your friends about this one match you had where you and a random took on 5 people in the jungle and made them rage quit. It takes testing and thinking outside of the box. Some can be subtle, some will be obvious, but the more synergy you have on your team the better chance you have at winning.

NOW SHARE YOUR TRICKS WITH ME, TELL ME YOUR GREATEST SECRETS, POST THEM HERE AND MAKE ME INVINCIBLE!!!!! MORE SYNERGY, I NEED MORE SYNERGY!!!!

If you give me a good one, and post how it works IN DETAIL. I will added it below the main post.

If you give me a bad one, i'll laught and point my fingers at it, BUT I'LL KEEP IT TO MYSELF, I PROMISE!!!

Instead of last hitting, just push all the way up to the turret, smack it a few times, retreat and heal, and repeat. If they try to hit alistar while he's pounding the turret, soraka heals him, reatreat at half life and both heal each other and repeat until turret drops. 3 wards are needed, 1 in front of baron/dragon (depending on whether you're top or bot), 1 in the bush entering into the lane close to your turret, the other in the bush entering the lane close to their turret. ganks are nearly guaranteed so this will prevent that.

Instead of last hitting, just push all the way up to the turret, smack it a few times, retreat and heal, and repeat. If they try to hit alistar while he's pounding the turret, soraka heals him, reatreat at half life and both heal each other and repeat until turret drops. 3 wards are needed, 1 in front of baron/dragon (depending on whether you're top or bot), 1 in the bush entering into the lane close to your turret, the other in the bush entering the lane close to their turret. ganks are nearly guaranteed so this will prevent that.

the thing is when alistar cast a spell, he does aoe dmg with his passive, so he can't heal minions at the turret with out aggroing the tower when champs get close, which kinda sucks.Buy yah, if anyone can do it, ali can.

I remember one time in a solo game, there was a three-man premade. We had no jungler, but they told us that the three of them would go in one lane. They were: Blitzcrank, Sion, and Alistar. Bottom lane was raped by them